NC’s top deer game lands

National forests, smaller game lands are tops

Mountain game lands

Of game lands in North Carolina’s mountains — outside of the Nantahala and Pisgah national forests —   biologist David Stewart of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, has one real favorite, and one that finishes a distant second.

“John’s River Game Land (in Burke County) is hard to beat for deer,” said Stewart.

Johns River covers 3,887 acres just east of Lake James in the Burke County high country. Last season, hunters killed 36 deer there, an average of six per square mile.

Stewart also likes Pond Mountain Game Land in Ashe County. This tract covers 3,682 acres along the borders between North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

“Pond Mountain has some big bucks,” Stewart said.

National forests

North Carolina’s two largest national forests, the Nantahala and Pisgah, cover roughly a half-million acres each in 19 counties. They had the largest public-land deer harvests last season, 554 and 496 deer, respectively.

But maybe the best deer hunting on national forests is on two smaller ones: the 160,000-acre Croatan National

Forest in three counties near New Bern, and the 50,000-acre Uwharrie National Forest in the southern Piedmont.

Biologist Greg Queen of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission said: “Uwharrie National Forest historically had deer when nobody else did. It’s got good deer numbers now and some big (bucks), if a hunter wants to go deep to get away from normal hunting pressure.”

Piedmont game lands

In the Piedmont, the B. Everett Jordan Game Lands, which surround much of the reservoir of the same name south of Durham, had one of the best harvests among game lands statewide.

Biologist Paul Thompson cited the R. Wayne Bailey-Caswell Game Lands as another top public-land destination for deer hunters in the Piedmont. Harvest figures bear that out. The game lands cover slightly more than 17,000 acres.